


Lt. Sweetride

by CavalierQueen



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierQueen/pseuds/CavalierQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kelly's reputation as a player keeps the one woman he wants far out of reach. Her demons haunt any relationship she might want with him. And her past threatens to overwhelm them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lt. Sweetride

Chapter 1

**A/N:** Newest fangirl crush, Kelly Severide and Jay Halstead. Yep, if I was Erin, I have them both! And to my followers, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything fanfic related. And here I am, entering yet another fandom, and leaving so many unfinished stories behind. I’m hopeful this new crush invigorates my writing again. My husband gave me a great idea about how to get myself out of the fix I wrote myself into with Lemon Jam, so perhaps…

**The Usual:** Don’t own, but would love to.

* * *

_It can be a sweet ride_  
It can be a long drop  
It can take a wrong turn right to a dead end  
It can make your heart stop  
It can lead nowhere  
You won’t know unless you go there  
It can be one more goodbye  
Or it can be a sweet ride.

_~ Courtney Jaye, Sweet Ride_

* * *

The chopper noise deadened to a dull roar as she pulled the ear covers over her ears, hooking the mic close to her mouth.

“Main, patch me through to Paramedic Shay.” Snow kept the visibility lousy as the pilot sped through the winter storm, wind jerking them up and down. Even buckled in, Dr. Elizabeth Talbot felt like she might fly out of her seat at any moment.

She heard static crackling through the comms and then she heard Leslie Shay’s empty voice, “Shay here.”

“Hey Leslie. It’s Elizabeth. Status?”

“Thank God, Liz. I am in way over my head here.”

“I doubt it, but I’m 5 minutes out. Status please.”

Elizabeth thought she heard Shay take a deep breath, but through all the noise that was probably fantasy. Shay was one of the calmest women under pressure she had ever known.

“I have three down here. Dawson is unconscious after being hit on the head attempting rescue. Severide is conscious but squeezed between the ground and the load of building collapse. He’s not hurt, but he’s holding the artery of a 10 year old girl whose arm is crushed, trying to keep her from bleeding out.”

“Vitals?”

Leslie rolled of the vitals for Severide and Dawson. “I can only get ankle pulse on Dawson. I can’t reach the girl at all. I’m pinned too.”

“Can you administer IV or pain meds?”

“With help, yeah, but right now I can’t stretch to anyone. Unless I put something in the ankle?”

“For Dawson or the girl?”

“Dawson. Can’t reach the girl.”

The helicopter circled the demolished school. The fires were out, but there was a lot of damage. She saw the majority of the firefighters digging through the wet debris.

“We’re landing now. Just hold on a minute and I’ll be in there with you.” Elizabeth cringed at the idea of crawling under clearly unstable debris into the dark, tight space. She didn’t like darkness on a good day, much less combine with tight spaces. _Bad memories._ She leaped out of the emergency helicopter before it had even settled onto the ground, grabbing the bag the copilot tossed to her.

Jogging to the huge black man wearing the chief’s fire helmet, Elizabeth threw the full bag on the ground and started dividing up supplies, stashing them in the zippered pockets of the travel vest she wore. This was her go-to clothing for emergencies and its frayed ends showed the wear and tear it had gone through. She listened while the chief explain the situation, strapping a tight fitting flat pack onto her back. It would allow her to shimmy through tiny spaces and still carry supplies into the hole with her.

“They’re in the basement boiler room, trapped under a ton of building materials. We’ve got it stable for now, but this thing is like a house of cards. It could fold any minute. I know you’ve got the training for this. I wouldn’t allow a civilian doctor down there.” She didn’t bother to correct him that she _was_ a civilian doctor, at least she was now. She knew what he meant. Very few trauma surgeons in the world had the sort of training she’d had. That was both a blessing and a curse.

The curse part was climbing through the darkness. The blessing was that she was able to help. And it was her friends that were down there along with a child. Elizabeth took a deep breath as two firefighters picked her up and helped angle her face first into the hole. They’d attached a belt around her waist, tied to a yellow nylon rope.

“Don’t go off rope for any reason!” one of them was yelling. “We’ll need it to find you if we need to. Follow Severide’s rope down. Ok?”

She nodded as small oxygen tanks were attached to her calves in case she needed them. She was easily carrying half her weight down into the abyss. Her gloved finger switched on the lamp on her headband, illuminating the darkness, the dirt, the closed in air. Catching sight of the twin yellow rope, she followed the line down and down.

“Les, I’m coming. How far are you guys down?”

A man’s deep voice came over the mic in her ear. “We’re about 20 feet down. Be careful at about 10 feet. There are a lot of sharps around.”

“Oh good. A party line. How is everything down there Lieutenant?”

“Oh you know, the only good day was yesterday.”

“Such a fatalist for a fire fighter. Besides, I thought you were a former Ranger. Those are a SEAL’s words.”

“Ok, how about Surrender is not a Ranger word?”

“There we go. Let’s keep our armed services creeds correct in these dangerous times,” she teased, appreciating the Severide’s ability to calm the situation. “Les, how you doing girl?”

“Feeling like you two should get a room already.” Elizabeth smiled as she pulled her way down what could loosely be described as a tunnel. What the hell was that girl doing down here anyway?

Elizabeth felt the sharps she’d been warned about scratch through her jeans. She continued to crawl, holding her elbows close to her body as she moved snake-like through the labyrinth of debris. She saw the yellow reflective tape of the fireman’s pants.

“I see you. Incoming.” Digging her toes into the debris she made one final push that brought her face first into the small space already filled with four bodies. Her smaller one was going to make it virtually impossible to move around.

Leslie was at the fireman’s feet, at an odd angle. “Where’s Dawson? The girl?”

“I’m holding Dawson’s leg. She’s perpendicular to Kelly. The girl is parallel to him. Dawson was trying to get a line in when the ceiling collapsed.” They were portioned out like a partial hexagon, squeezed down into a 5 foot space.

From the lack of space, Elizabeth thought it was likely that more than just the ceiling had fallen on them, but maybe all the floors from above. They were all lucky to be alive at all. “Alright, Lieutenant. We’re going to get real cozy here in a sec. I need to assess the girl and Dawson.”

“I’ve only been trying to get cozy with you for months. It takes getting trapped in a hole to finally get a date with you.” She heard the laugh in his voice, despite the circumstances. “Should have planned this earlier.”

Elizabeth pushed herself on top of the prone Kelly Severide, draping herself sideways over his chest.

“Even trapped in a hole, I _still_ don’t date players, L.T.,” she confirmed for him as she pulled the stethoscope from her shirt and tried to find a pulse on the girl, who jerked awake when she felt the cold metal pressed to her skin.

The girl immediately started crying. “Hey sweetheart. It’s ok. I’m going to help you out.”

“It huurrttsss,” the girl cried. The girl started trying to move and Elizabeth immediately held her down. In the dark, it was a miracle Kelly had found the bleeding artery in the first place, she didn’t want the girl to wiggle her way out of his grasp now.

“I know sweetie. I need you to stay very still. This nice firefighter, Lt. Severide, is holding your arm where you are hurt. We don’t want him to let go, ok?  I’m going to give you something right now that is going to make the pain stop. It’s going to feel funny going in, and then you are going to go to sleep. When you wake up, your parents will be there.” Elizabeth prepped the morphine, making an educated guess at the child’s weight, holding the syringe so her light shined on it to check for bubbles.

Elizabeth pulled herself further over Severide’s body so she could reach the girl’s undamaged arm to give the shot. The child kept whimpering while Severide and Leslie talked quietly to her. She felt the pressure her weight was putting on Severide’s ability to breathe.

“There you go sweetheart. When you wake up, you’ll see your parents.” They all waited the seconds it took for the girl to fall asleep. She pushed back a bit, moving off of Severide’s chest and onto his hips. “Hopefully this will make it easier for you to breathe, L.T.”

“Maybe physically,” she barely heard him whisper. It was an awkward position to be in, and if the circumstances weren’t so dire, she would never be crawling all over him. He’d been asking her out for a while and she’d always turned him down. Now she was in really close contact with him and it felt much too intimate, a situation she had gone to great lengths to avoid the past few months. She slithered up his body, bringing their bodies into full contact so she could reach the girl’s injured arm.

Elizabeth wiggled her hips pulling a clamp from the back of her jeans and she heard Severide groan. This must be really uncomfortable for him. “Do I weigh that much, Sweetride?”

“Severide,” he made clear, and then answered, “It’s not the weight, Doc.” It was cold outside, even cold in this tiny space, but his body radiated heat, especially as she covered his body with hers. Her leg brushed against his groin as she tried to angle herself to clamp the girl’s arm, and she gasped when she felt how hard he was against her thigh.

Her eyes jerked to his as his lamp lit up her face, her blush creeping across her face. “Oh!” She looked away quickly and started to babble a bit, trying to refocus on the task at hand. “I’m going to clamp and then tie this off. I’ll be quick then you can let go and start figuring out a way to get us the hell out of here.”

“Sorry about that,” he whispered where only she could hear him. He had never gotten aroused in a tense situation like this before, and to have been discovered, well, that was hell on his ego. He prided himself on being professional on the job, but he hadn’t kept his iron control and he’d embarrassed her.

He watched while her tiny fingers tied off the artery he’d been holding for the last hour. His hand, especially his thumb and forefinger, had lost feeling before she’d ever gotten down here. Once she motioned for him to release, he pulled his hand away and immediately started opening and closing it to get the blood flowing.

“I’m going to hook her up to some O2, and then I’ll be off of you.”

“No hurry on my account,” he laughed slightly.

“Horndog,” Leslie sighed as Elizabeth hooked up the O2 tank to the small child and draped the tubing around her head and into her nose.

“Let’s take a look at Dawson now.” Shimmying back down Severide’s body, she found Dawson still unconscious. There was a huge gash just over her right eye. She couldn’t see any other damage at the moment. “Leslie, hand me a brace. I can’t see anything but this gash on her temple. Breathing is good, though.”

She couldn’t turn around so she reached back blindly while Leslie Shay passed the neck brace into her grasping hand. A moment later, it was snapped around Dawson’s head.

“Ok, Sweetride, you’re up. Get us out of here.” She rolled off of him and onto Shay while he wiggled his way back into the tunnel she had just climbed through.

“Guys, send down a backboard on a pulley. We’ll put the girl out first and I’ll guide it back up. We’ll do the same for Dawson.” Severide turned his head back to his best friend Leslie and the doctor, shining his lamp on them. “I’ll be right back.”

Elizabeth swallowed the sob she heard Leslie utter as they watched the big man crawl away from them. She reached for the other woman’s hand in the darkness and squeezed, comforted by the return pressure.

“When we get out of here, I’m so getting drunk and sleeping on the roof tonight.”

“Leslie, it’s going to be 30 degrees tonight!”

“I don’t care, I don’t think I can face being inside for a while.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling,” she felt the incipient panic rolling from the depths of her soul as the adrenaline from the immediate crisis faded. “I think I’ll be sleeping with the lights on for a while.”

Leslie squeezed her hand again as she saw the bright yellow backboard slide its way into their small space. “Shay, you and the Doc are going to have to roll the girl onto the board. I can’t climb over and get in there.”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Leslie answered, crawling to the girl. Without the big guy in the middle of the room it didn’t seem quite so crowded even if it was still a really small space. Unable to stand or even sit up, the two women carefully rolled and dragged the small body into position and slipped her onto the board. Leslie quickly strapped her in and yelled ‘Go!’ They watched the board slide back up the tunnel.

A few minutes later, they were lifting Gabby Dawson’s unconscious body on to the yellow board and began pushing it up behind Severide. They made a long chain, neither wanting to stay down there any longer than necessary. First was Severide, then Dawson on the backboard, then Elizabeth with Shay bringing up the rear.

Severide pulled Elizabeth and then Shay out of the rubble. The girl was already on her way to the hospital in the helicopter. Elizabeth took in the cold clean air and slowly let it out. “Thanks, Lt. Sweetride.”

“Severide.”

“I know, but from what I hear, you are one sweet ride.” She smiled as she walked over to the ambulance, riding to the hospital with Dawson.

He followed beside her. “You know, I’m sorry about what happened down there. I can’t really explain it. It’s never happened to me before.”

Elizabeth lifted an amused eyebrow, “Really?” she drawled, clearly not believing.

“Not like that, not in the middle of a rescue. I’m really sorry.”

She stopped at the doors of the ambulance, putting her hand on his wide chest. She could feel his heart thundering beneath his quilted jacket. “Please stop apologizing for something that cannot be controlled. It’s not like you did anything about it. No harm, no foul.”

“So will you have dinner with me?” he asked again as he helped her into the ambulance. She’d already started examining Dawson’s head wound. He fully expected her to say ‘no’ again. He stood there, hat in hand, waiting for yet another blow.

“Good night Kelly. Stay safe,” she gave him a sly smile as she pulled the door to the ambulance closed.

Kelly Severide stood in the blowing snow, pulling his helmet back on. “Definitely not a no,” he laughed.

**A/N:** Reviews keep the muse fed. It’s been a while since I’ve written much of anything and hoping this is received well enough to encourage me to continue writing. It’s going to be a long summer break without CF and CP. I made Kelly an Army Ranger based on what I’ve seen on the wiki’s. I’m not convinced that he actually is one as he hasn’t demonstrated or talked about his service, at least not in Season 2. Never saw Season 1. My bad.

 

 


	2. Chapter 1

Lt. Sweetride

Chapter 2

**Notes:** Some events will be borrowed or changed from the show for this story. Some stuff will be new. T for now. Will become M because, well, they always do.

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews, favs, and follows! It does my muse good as I use writing as an outlet for my current fangirl obsession. I’ve gone back into Chapter 1 and changed it slightly to take out the reference to Severide as a Ranger. Apparently the wiki is incorrect, and that Ranger tab is actually referring to some sort of scuba equipment (maybe?). Definitely not a Ranger though. He just doesn’t have the vibe for that.

* * *

_If you can't remember a better time_  
you can have mine, little one.  
In days to come when your heart feels undone  
may you always find an open hand  
and take comfort wherever you can.

_Deb Talan, Comfort_

* * *

“The mom was released last night, but she’s stayed here with the girl Caroline. They are all going to be fine,” Dr. Wilhite explained to Casey and Severide.

“That’s really good news,” Casey said, clutching the stuff panda bear.

“Two of our paramedics found this bear in the ambulance. We think it’s the girl’s.”

“Caroline.”

“Yea, Caroline. We cleaned it up for her and wanted to return it,” Severide finished. The panda bear had been completely soot covered when Shay found it in the ambulance, but now it was clean and mostly white again, thanks to a good wash.

“Let me get the mother out here. Maybe she’d like for you guys to return it directly.” Wilhite walked into the glass enclosed room and came out quickly. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brooker doesn’t want to talk with you right now.”

Then the dark haired lady stormed out of the room and towards the firemen. “Are you the ones that were there?”

Both men braced themselves against her anger, acknowledging they were but staying silent.

“It’s your fault. My husband is dead because you didn’t get to us in time. You didn’t save him and now my children don’t have a father.” She broke down in tears, ripping the panda bear from Casey’s hands. “Go away! I don’t want you to see my children!”

Speechless, the two men looked on as she stalked away, listening to her sobs as she retreated. Kelly’s heart broke for her, broke for them all as they were still reeling from not being able to save such a brave man. Starkly lit by fluorescents, the sterile white corridor screamed against their failure as he jerkily hurried away.

“I’m sorry about that,” Dr. Wilhite began.

“Yea, no, don’t worry about it Doc. We get it,” Casey whispered, turning to follow Severide out.

Kelly pulled up short when he saw Dr. Elizabeth Talbot standing at the double doors leading out of the pediatric unit. Her eyes were damp with sympathy. She’d obviously witnessed the whole exchange. He felt Casey stop right behind him, while he just stood there.

Her long auburn hair was pulled back in a messy pony tail, like it always seemed to be. He wondered briefly just how long it was and if she ever wore it down. Her eyes were even greener with unshed tears of compassion. He didn’t move as she walked towards them, her eyes locked with his.

Elizabeth stopped just in front of Kelly, standing on tip toe and reaching her arms up and around his neck, bringing him into a tight hug. He stiffened in surprise and then relaxed as she just held him in silence, her breath soft against his neck. His arms circled her waist, his face buried against her hair. She smelled fresh and clean with a hint of jasmine and something raw and musky he wasn’t familiar with. He remembered her scent from the collapsed building. He let her smell fill his mind just as her body filled his arms.

Silently, she broke the hug and turned to Casey, embracing him as well, but holding him only briefly. Her hand dropped to Casey’s quilted navy jacket while taking Kelly’s hand in her other one. “You guys look like you could use a drink.”

Kelly snorted, “You have no idea.”

“I might have an inkling. I’ve got nothing stronger than pretty good coffee or a soda to offer, but I’ve got a few minutes if you want to sit for a bit. I’m buying.”

The two men looked at each other and back at the doctor. “Sure. A few minutes would be great.” She released them both and led the way to the cafeteria in silence. Not a word was spoken as she gestured to the coffee and sodas, only letting the cashier know it was on her tab.

They found a quiet table in a corner and sat, both men waiting until she had taken a seat before sitting themselves. Kelly studied every move the woman made as she walked them through the corridor. She wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’ 3” or so in her flat comfortable shoes, but she had a long stride and easily kept up with them. When they got to the café, she nodded with her head or waved with her hand to give directions, holding their silent grief for them while they went through the motions.

Casey broke the silence, “We don’t want to talk about it.” Severide was slumped in the awkward plastic chair, picking at the wax on the recyclable paper cup his soda came in. He felt like shit. Shit because he hadn’t been able to save the father. Shit because the woman attacked them. Just shitty all around. But he didn’t want to talk about it either.

“Ok,” Elizabeth agreed quietly. “We don’t have to talk at all. Just a couple comrades in arms taking a break.”

Severide wanted to talk, not about the woman, or the father who had died, but talk about something, anything else. He hadn’t seen her since the building collapse a week ago, and he’d never gotten to actually sit with her to talk. Avoiding him seemed to be her SOP, so now that he was sitting next to her, at her invitation, he was completely caught off guard. So much for smooth.

“You know, about a year ago, I got this letter,” both men looked up from their not very interesting drinks. She played with the straw in her Diet Coke, staring off into space, her raw throaty voice continuing. “I’d once had to amputate both legs of a soldier to save his life. He’d been blown apart by an IED. When he woke up, and found out he’d lost his legs, he screamed and cursed at me, telling me I should have let him die. That his life was no longer worth living. He even tried to kill himself while he was in the hospital.”

Kelly watched her lips tremble at the memory. It wasn’t unlike how he was feeling right now. “I sat with him at the hospital. Read to him. Listened to him rail at me. Just sat in silence while he slept. When he was stable enough, he got shipped to Germany and then home. I figured I’d never hear from him again. That maybe he’d end up killing himself after all.”

She brushed a tear from her cheek and looked right into Kelly’s eyes. “Then I got this letter. It had been forwarded around until it finally reached me here. It was from him, and he thanked me for all I had done. And apologized for all the terrible things he had said at the time.”

Elizabeth reached into the pocket of her white coat, and pulled out her stethoscope. Attached to it were a couple of laminated pictures. She pulled one aside and handed it to Kelly. “This is that man, two years after we sent him home. He has a beautiful loving wife, and they have two children. They named their little girl Elizabeth.”

Both men fingered the photograph, looking at the good looking blonde man who might have been a football player in a past life, the two tow-headed blonde toddlers, and the beautiful woman who stood beside him.

“When in pain, or in grief, sometimes people lash out at those they hold responsible. Mrs. Booker will one day be able to thank you for saving her children so that they can grow up and remember the man who sacrificed his life for theirs, their father. You know that you did everything that you could. _I_ know you did everything that you could. I see these victims when they come in, and I _know_ what was done to save them. And I know when nothing would have made any difference.”

Casey cleared his throat, hard a couple of times. Kelly quickly wiped his eyes, before any tears fell out of his too full blue eyes.

“Thanks for the drinks Doc,” Kelly said, standing letting his chair scrape across the linoleum floor, breaking the moment. Casey and Elizabeth stood and she looked from one man to the other.

“Maybe you’ll let me buy you the next round, only something definitely stronger, at Molly’s?” Kelly suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

“I like Molly’s. They’ve got a comfortable vibe going there.”

“You’ve been there?” Casey and Kelly asked in surprise.

“Yep. But apparently not when you’ve been. Shay and Dawson have a stake it in the place. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t support them when I can? Which isn’t that often, but I try.”

“So will you have a drink with me?” Severide asked again. They were almost to the exterior doors that would take them to the trucks where their guys waited.

“Truck 81, Ambulance 61, Squad 3, we have a car in the water at pier 6.” Both men straightened and turned to rush out the doors.

“Thanks for the talk Doc,” called Casey.

“I’m not going to quit asking,” shouting Kelly.

Elizabeth watched as they both ran through the automatic doors. “I sure hope not,” she whispered.

**A/N:** Reviews feed the muse. 


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